Washington Principal Archives

Fall 2017

What takes a principal from “great” to “remarkable?” This issue features the 2017 Washington State Principals of the Year. Also in this issue: ESSA Plan Update, the Great Principal Swap, The Problem with Algebra, and Being Your Own Advocate.

Columns

Every place I look, I see change. The colors on the leaves just changed, and now those trees shed their leaves for the changing season. Our political climate changed, and not for the better. My health insurance provider canceled the plan I was on, so there’s a change I wasn’t planning on making. As you all know, sometimes change is good, sometimes change is bad. Personally, the best change I’ve ever experienced happened in October when I married the woman of my dreams....

The great Vince Lombardi once said, “Leaders are made, they are not born. They are made by hard effort, which is the price which all of us must pay to achieve any goal that is worthwhile.” While I completely agree with the famous football coach, research indicates some personality qualities might predispose some individuals to become leaders....

I have seen the video, “ The Adaptable Mind” so often that it has become like that song you can’t get out of your head. It’s difficult for me to turn around these days without running into another article that connects back to the tenets of the video, which prophetically describes five characteristics today’s youth must have in order to succeed in tomorrow’s world – Curiosity, Creativity, Initiative, Multi- disciplinary inking and Empathy. I feel like the video is the paddle and I am the ball, connected to the paddle by an elastic band on one of my favorite (and my mother’s least favorite) toys growing up — the paddleball....